At the Globe and Mail, Eric Duhatschek writes that he can already declare the long-term winner of the lockout and says it will be the players.

Why the players when they are the ones giving up the most to make a deal? Because “the minute the ink is dry on a new collective agreement, agents and general managers will find clever ways to circumvent the spirit and language of the new deal.”

He adds “This is the unchanging way of the NHL world, where 30 teams annually compete for one prize. Team owners get frustrated by losing and eventually instruct the people who work for them to do whatever it takes to stop losing.”

At CBC, Elliotte Friedman writes that Gary Bettman doesn’t just want to win this lockout on paper, like he did in 2004-05, he wants a complete and loophole free victory.